Hold on, now I might understand upon trying it out some more.
The problem isn't the crank direction. The crank direction fits the animation. The problem is that the animation doesn't make sense to me. One card is lifted up to reveal another card lying under it, right? That card lying under it should be the NEXT card in the sequence. Instead it's the PREVIOUS card. So I'll be on card 39, and it gets lifted up to reveal the card under it, which is card 38. That makes no sense to me, it should be card 40.